Congressman Ron Barber and Republican Martha McSally have responded to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, which supports the right of closely held companies to deny birth-control coverage and other medical services if the owners have a religious objection. Barber is upset by the decision; McSally says the issue “is not whether women should have access to contraception without cost, but whether the Obamacare mandates and substantial penalties are the legal way to provide that access.”
Barber’s statement from Monday:
Today’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby allows the beliefs of corporations to trample the rights of employees, especially the rights of women. All employees—men and women—must be free to make their own health care choices with their doctors and without interference from their employer. I will continue fighting to protect the right of all women to make their own health care decisions.
McSally’s take:
I support women’s access to contraception as well as the protection of religious liberty. Unlike many commenting on the U.S. Supreme Court verdict, I actually took the time to read the opinion and my statement here is based on the facts of the very narrow ruling. At issue is not whether women should have access to contraception without cost, but whether the Obamacare mandates and substantial penalties are the legal way to provide that access. The court ruled that the Obamacare mandate for employers to provide twenty methods of contraception for free, including four post-fertilization methods, substantially burdens the religious freedom of closely held companies owned by individuals with sincerely held religious beliefs that life begins at conception. The court ruled that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which “prohibits the Federal Government from taking any action that substantially burdens the exercise of religion unless that action constitutes the least restrictive means of serving a compelling government interest.
I agree with the majority of the court that the Obamacare mandate and penalties are not the least restrictive means of providing women access to contraception. Health and Human Services already identified a work-around for religious non-profits and I agree with the court that this work-around can apply in these narrow circumstances as well. But now we need to be focused on how we ensure more women have access to health care. The fact that we’re in this position shows exactly what’s wrong with Obamacare. It tries to force individuals and business owners into compliance through mandates and penalties, and, as we’ve seen, has actually hurt women’s access to health care through cancelled policies and reduced choice. I support patient-centered reform that ensures all women have access to affordable health care.
This article appears in Jul 3-9, 2014.
Hey Martha; the Koch brothers say thanks for doing a great job cutting and pasting their canned statement they made for you. So many of the GOP guys never even read them and if you are that computer-savvy; or maybe its a staffer, so never mind.
If folks don’t universally condemn this lunatic ruling, except for the devout and the National Socialists of course, we are already sliding full-speed down the slope
“National Socialists”…interesting use of the word. SOCIALIST! LOL Those guys liked to interfere in peoples lives too.
Devout or NAZI?
Sorry Mr Barber, but the only thing trampled has been the AZ desert because of you, the President, and John McCain. Seal the border and let planned parenthood cover the killings with tax dollars.
There will be hell to pay for this.
Yo, Fraser and rat, while you were jackin’ on the internet, those kids knocked your little jockey statue off your lawn again and I’m pretty sure a couple were Nicaraguan child-illegals!
I doubt that Martha will ever need birth control since she had her vasectomy.
Martha, so condescending. Ugh.
This country needs a public option to allow US citizens access to medical care. That option should include birth control coverage. We are one of the richest nations in the world and we do not provide adequate health care for tens of millions of our citizens.
I would roll Medicaid, Medicare, and other social medical programs into a public option program. We all would have a tax deducted out of our paychecks to cover the expenses and businesses would also be taxed to help fund it.
Employee based health care is a burden on our economic system. Every other industrialized nation that still has a large manufacturing sector has socialized medicine to cover their citizens. This allows companies not to cover the cost of health care and push that cost onto the price of their products.
Mrs. Betty Bowers, “America’s Best Christian” pretty much nails it here… https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto…
Contraception should be available OTC. Then politicians can grandstand about something else.
Martha: “Sincerely held religious beliefs” are something you share with your family in your home, and share with like minded people in a church. They have no place shaping or dictating our nation’s laws. Corporations are not people, they legal entities on paper only, in the business of making profits. They serve the general public and employ the general public, and are subject to every law, whether their owners and/or shareholders like the law or not. This Supreme Court ruling is a terrible precedent – by their logic, a Muslim owned company should be able to dictate to their employees that they not eat pork, as that violates their “sincerely held religious beliefs”.
I wonder who wrote that for McSally. From her past “performances”, she doesn’t have the brainpower, will to give an opinion, nor the ability to successfully articulate ANY idea or opinion in written or spoken English.
As for “her” absurd characterization of the torturous, ideological assertion of the five right-wing radicals with NO basis in any rational reading of the Constitution that corporations’ “religious beliefs” (WTF??) trump Human Rights and Equality as “Obama’s Fault”, considering the sheep she’s trying to get to vote for her, what other words should be put in her mouth, eh?
McSally = republican rubber-stamped McCandidate…
Martha McSally is spot on, the ACA is a bad law as evidenced by this ruling and another, less spoken of aspect, the tax penalty on individuals who opt out of the ACA. How many people will that affect? And how many people has this ruling actually affected?
If you’re going to get your panties in a knot it should be over the people who have had their work hours reduced to under thirty hours so their companies don’t have to offer ANY insurance. How come the local Obama stooges, Grijalva and Barber spoken just as loudly about these profane actions against their fellow Americans?
The bashing of McSally is simply stupid when compared to what these two men continue to do TO Americans and not FOR them.
So it’s Grijalva & Barber’s fault companies screw over their employees? Companies have used part time employees to avoid having to pay any benefits, including sick pay & holiday pay long before the ACA.
I work part time, in addition to ‘early retirement’ Social Security, and don’t get any benefits, and I’m 62, no Medicare for 3 more years. So you know what I did? I went to HealthCare.gov and found a great insurance policy for under $50/mo. And I’m fortunate to be healthy, since the policy went into effect April 1 I’ve had a whole 2 prescriptions filled. I just got the policy for peace of mind so that should I have a major medical event I won’t be buried under a mountain of debt.
What about MY right to choose? Why must I have this insurance when I do not need it as I have not needed it in the past? Demographically, there are really only two groups needing good insurance which I refer to as the “diaper sets”; the youth from prenatal until adulthood and seniors. That forty year gap is populated by generally healthy people who have little need for health insurance, with infinitesimal exceptions. It is well known that for the $50/mo policies to exist there must be a corresponding monthly payment 3~4 times that amount which someone else will have to pay. If there is going to be a requirement to have affordable insurance one then it should be EQUALLY affordable.
Yes, Grijalva and Barber are wholly culpable for endorsing a program that has had part ime work hours cut from 36/wk to 30/wk for millions of Americans. That is why the jobs numbers have been increasing, these companies have had to hire more part timers to make up the difference. AND, these people the ACA is supposed t be helping are still required to have insurance. In the past they made do without or were added on to a spouses policy. Yes, they can till be added to the spouses policy {those who were not dropped} but now they only get to work 30/wk.
So, for those of us fortunate to be healthy we still have to have insurance or face a penalty/tax. And don’t give me any crap about it being the same as having car insurance unless you’re willing to have me acknowledge THAT stupid premise with the point that it’s about requiring car insurance for someone who doesn’t own a car.
Mr. Simpson, I’m happy to allow people not to buy health insurance as long as those of you who don’t agree that if you get injured, have cancer or whatnot you must pay full costs up front for all treatment and if you can’t ( can’t afford it or, say, you are unconscious in a car accident) you receive no treatment even if it means you die. I hate free riders.
It never fails, I ask a rhetorical question and someone invariably tries to answer it; and in the process of doing so they miss the point of the comment entirely. My participation on this topic is about the continuing damage the idiotic ACA is doing to our nation and how many like me feel about it. The purpose of my rhetorical question is to point out the inequities in the law and the naïve reaction of people who think it is the greatest thing since I walked on water. And to use the word hate or to wish for my death makes me feel you are one of those demonic arch conservative bible thumpers who supports SBs1070 & 1062.
It never fails, someone makes absurd assertions and then when called out on it they try to weasel out of it by claiming it was only a “rhetorical question”. You made the ridiculous claim that the 40 year gap between the (baby) diaper set and the (adult) diaper set have an infinitesimal need for health insurance. Tell that to a 30 year old guy who falls off a ladder while trying to fix a leaky roof, or a 35 year woman hit by a hit & run driver. The very definition of insurance is that you pay small monthly amounts to a company that guarantees you won’t suffer a large loss from unseen future circumstances. I’ve paid many thousands of dollars over the years for home insurance and never made a claim for a dime, because I don’t want to be homeless with a mortgage for a home burned down by a lightening strike or faulty wiring. There are no inequities in the ACA, everyone gets better coverage. Get over it. And get covered.
Answering rhetorical questions seems to be more important than understanding WHY the question exists. The pronoun “my” probably should have been “our” for better clarity. The purpose of the question was to adress the other inequalities of the law.
As an example, why should a person who can afford to pay outright for ANY medical needs be FORCED to pay a penalty/tax to opt out? A few years ago a very good friend of mine had a very complex surgery done gratis simply because he maintained the doctor’s airplane so well.
A person falling off a ladder is infintesimal in the context of 340M Americans. My need for auto insurance is equally infintesimal yet it is the law of this state, NOT a national mandate. There are exceptions to the auto insurance law and everyone pays the same basic amount. There should also be exceptions to the ACA and everyone should pay the same basic amount. THIS is where Grijalva and Barber have failed in their representation of the American people.
Because the number of people who can afford to pay for ANY medical needs is infinitesimally small. And it’s similar to Medicare – everyone pays into it, even if they’re a Mitt Romney and have more than enough money to pay for their own medical needs, or buy superior insurance coverage. Insurance only works when you have the broadest possible pool of those insured with only a few making claims against it.
Auto insurance is only required for liability, one’s responsibility to cover damage/injury to someone else. In Arizona you are required to carry a minimum of $15,000 for bodily injury liability and $10,000 for property damage liability. Many states offer the option of posting a bond or showing proof of having cash available to cover the minimum liability limits, allowing them to opt out of liability insurance . Almost no does that. But if it would make you happy I can agree to a tweak in the ACA law to allow folks to post a bond or show sufficient assets to cover ANY medical needs, perhaps $50k or $100k, and allow that infinitesimally small number of people to opt out of the insurance mandate, instead of paying a much smaller amount of tax penalty.
Finally, under the ACA everyone does pay the same basic amount. Any resident of Arizona could purchase the exact same medical insurance policy I purchased for exactly the same price, regardless of their age, gender, financial or health status. That’s a huge improvement over the old system. And a huge improvement over auto insurance, in which your age, driving record, claim history and even your credit score makes a big difference in how much you pay.
I accept your pronoun “you” as the collective “you” because I personally have all I need for coverage with no personal complaints but, like a lot of people here my comments are more about the wrong things happening TO people as well as what has been done FOR so many but the ACA is a bad law.
I return to my original post here about the people who have been adversely affected by this law. As of last month untold millions have had their weekly hours cut by companies who won’t do the right thing and offer the insurance. Sure, these people may be eligible for that “$50” insurance but I suspect they would rather have the extra hours. And what has the president said about this? Grijalva? Barber? These two men are supposed to advocate for the “downtrodden” but not a peep. But people fall all over themselves to mock McSally when she speaks to the truth while these three goofs offer nothing but platitudes.
And for those who simply punch “dislike”, speak up and offer a position that makes me step back because otherwise they are just more, well, “platitudes”.
Oh, and I once lived in a state where I could bond my house which saved me a lot of money. I still believe the cost should be equal based on medical history the same as insurance costs are based on driving history. At present millions more single Americans pay upwards of $200/mo with no way out.